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Mindfulness
Leading Yourself With Self-Compassion
Integrating the fierce and the tender.
Posted October 12, 2022 Reviewed by Davia Sills
Key points
- Self-compassionate leaders aren’t just "kind" to themselves. They integrate the fierceness of action as well as the tenderness.
- Some ways to show yourself compassion include being self-aware, cultivating kindness, and appreciating your connectedness.
- Self-compassion is a state of mind that supports and motivates you to take necessary action for change.
When you make a mistake, do you accept it as a learning point without self-criticism or beating yourself up? And when others make mistakes or don’t succeed, how do you speak to them?
Most of the time, we talk to (and lead) others more compassionately than we treat ourselves. Many people berate themselves when they make a mistake or fail in the belief that this will prevent complacency and motivate them to succeed. Sound familiar?
But what if there was an alternative in which we used the energy of nurturing and action to lead ourselves and our teams, motivate change, and even promote social justice? A model that increases our self-compassion, mindfulness, compassion for others, motivation, life satisfaction, and health outcomes; a practice that can decrease depression, anxiety, stress, and emotional avoidance. What if we exercise self-compassion as we lead?
Compassion, Self-Compassion, and One Big Misconception
Compassion means noticing other people’s suffering, feeling moved by it, and responding by caring and wanting to help alleviate their pain. The literal meaning of compassion is “suffer with.”
Self-compassion demonstrates this towards yourself—in tough times, when you don’t succeed, or if there’s something you don’t like about yourself. Rather than suppressing your feelings, you acknowledge the fact that life (or this task) is challenging. You accept that you feel this way—failure, loss, and frustration are all part of life’s rich tapestry. And, importantly, you identify what you need to do to comfort and care for yourself. This usually involves changing your attitude or behavior as a result of your learning.
And this leads us to a big misconception—that self-compassion means showing only tenderness. But that’s not the case. There’s another part of self-compassion that’s equally important—fierceness.
Self-compassion expert Kristin Neff says, “When we relate to ourselves with tender self-compassion, we care for and nurture ourselves. When we relate to ourselves with fierce self-compassion, we assert our autonomy and stand up for our rights.” Self-compassion is about tenderness and care, as well as strength and action. Both energies are vital elements of self-compassion and need to be in balance.
Living and Leading With Self-Compassion
So, how do we use self-compassion as leaders? Here are four types of action you can begin or refine to incorporate both tender and fierce compassion as you lead:
1. Gather self-intelligence.
This means being mindful and self-aware. Maybe you have experienced a setback or disappointment in how you handled a conversation. Acknowledge your feelings of pain or discomfort in a given situation. What are they telling you? Explore this as data with openness and curiosity.
Practices such as mindfulness, meditation, or journaling can help shed some light on the experience and what you might need to move forward. One of Neff’s mantras to use and sit with discomfort is: “This is a moment of suffering. Suffering is a part of life. I can offer myself kindness and compassion in this moment.”
Bringing awareness to what is going on allows you to recognize when you are suffering, respond with kindness, and move forward. Self-awareness allows you to gain perspective and important intelligence, and, practically speaking, we can’t heal what we can’t feel.
2. Cultivate kindness as you craft your path.
Kindness comes in many forms, from a warm, friendly, supportive attitude we can show to ourselves all the way to bravery, boundaries, and strength.
So, if you’ve made a mistake or experienced a setback, you want to ask yourself, “What do I need right now?” and, more specifically, “What do I need to alleviate my suffering?” It could be tenderness or fierceness, or both. This requires you to:
- Watch your self-talk. Instead of harsh self-criticism, speak to yourself with caring and kindness—as you might talk to a friend or a team member. Neff points to research that criticism does not motivate anyone to action or change as effectively as compassionate, caring kindness and encouragement.
Practicing self-kindness provides us with the resources to cope with hardship, making it more bearable.
3. Check your connections.
As Susan Davis says, “Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.” Pain and suffering are normal—they connect us in our common humanity, and connectedness is inherent to compassion. When we turn compassion inwards, we acknowledge that all humans are important and lead imperfect lives. Therefore:
- Remember your connectedness. We’re all part of a larger, interdependent whole. Your actions impact mine, and vice versa. This is particularly important for leaders who are visible and are role modeling, even if not intentionally doing so.
- Accept imperfection. The reality is that humans are imperfect. You will make mistakes, and you will fail at times. Everyone does. Use these moments as learning opportunities.
When you recognize your fallibility, you open yourself to the learning opportunities at your disposal. “When we accept failure and mistakes as part of the learning process, and when we approach it with kindness and encouragement, we’re going to want to do better because we care,” Kristin Neff says. “It puts us in a mindset that maximizes our ability to learn and grow.”
4. Take action.
People often confuse care with complacency and inaction, thinking that you simply accept and forgive failure or mistakes. But effective self-compassion is about embracing, embodying, and actioning the two forces of tenderness and fierceness to effect change and bring about wellness.
Self-compassion is as much about awareness and acceptance as it is about taking action. Fierce self-compassion means acting to alleviate our pain or problems—not through self-loathing but by protecting, providing for, and motivating ourselves to make change happen.
Leveraging this caring force of tenderness and fierceness and integrating both makes us more wholehearted people and leaders. From here, we can use compassion’s power to transform ourselves, our circumstances, and our world.
